Edison Nuclear Plants Fall Short On Efficiency

June 11, 1989|By Rob Karwath.

Commonwealth Edison Co., one of the nation`s most experienced utilities in terms of atomic power, has operated its nuclear generating plants less efficiently than the national average in 3 of the last 4 years, records show. The utility`s six new nuclear plants, which have been completed over the last seven years at a cost of nearly $12 billion, all have performed below the national average in terms of generating capacity, according to records provided by the utility and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Consumer groups say the performance of Edison`s plants-and especially the new plants-proves that the utility has built too many nuclear stations. They also contend that Edison should be consistently above the national generating average because of its experience.

The utility responds that the performance of its new plants results from inevitable bugs in the systems that are being ironed out. As a result, they say, it`s unfair to compare the performance of their relatively new plants with the rest of the country`s plants, which are generally older.

Even so, Edison officials point to last year`s performance with six new nuclear plants. Despite the new plants, Edison`s average generating capacity exceeded the national average.

But, ``I think the numbers speak for themselves,`` said Steve Hickey, chief of the planning and operations section of the Illinois Commerce Commission research staff. ``From what I`ve seen, Com Ed`s generating units haven`t performed as well as everyone would have liked them to.``

``What we`ve seen with Edison`s new, expensive plants is relatively poor performance,`` said Howard Learner, associate general counsel for Business and Professional People for the Public Interest. ``This is particularly distressing because Edison, which has more nuclear experience than almost any other nuclear utility in the country, should be above the national average.

``The economic justification for nuclear power is that the multibillion-dollar capital costs will be offset from fuel savings when plants perform well,`` he said.

Edison officials say that output averages are a poor measure of whether their new plants are needed. They say that the averages reveal only a well-known fact: that Edison has placed the most nuclear plants on line since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 raised nuclear safety concerns and plant construction costs.

The two reactors at Edison`s La Salle station near Marseilles have been the worst performers in Edison`s nuclear fleet. The plants have generated electricity at 40 percent and 52 percent of their capacities since they were placed in service in 1982 and 1984, Edison`s records show.

In the seven years since the first La Salle reactor came on line, plants in the rest of the country have averaged 59.3 percent.

In 1987, the Illinois Commerce Commission ordered Edison to refund more than $70 million to customers because the first La Salle reactor ran at only 17.1 percent of capacity in 1983. Edison had forecast a 60 percent output for the plant when it received a $660.7 million rate increase the year before.

Edison`s two reactors at Byron, near Rockford, have averaged 59.9 percent and 59.8 percent of capacity since they were placed in service in 1985 and 1987, according to Edison.

In the four years since the first Byron plant came on line, nuclear plants nationally have run at a 61.2 percent average.

Edison`s two other new reactors are at Braidwood, near Joliet. The first ran at an average of 55 percent of capacity after it went into service in 1987, according to the company. The second generated at an average of 61.3 percent after it went into service last August.

Chicago-based Edison, which supplies electricity to 3.1 million customers in northern Illinois, operates 12 nuclear plants, more than any other U.S. utility, and one-tenth of the plants in the country.

The national average includes plants such as California`s Rancho Seco. Last week, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District shut the plant down, largely because it ran at less than 40 percent of capacity over its 15-year history.

Learner said Edison should be on par with utilities such as Duke Power Co., based in Charlotte, N.C., which operates seven nuclear plants. Last year, the average output of the Duke plants was 77.4 percent. Duke has outpaced the national average in 9 of the last 10 years.

But Edison officials contend that while they have been starting new plants and working out the bugs, the rest of the nation`s utilities have been running older plants with more stable generating averages.

``During three of those years when we were below the national average, we were in the process of bringing new units on line,`` said Gary Wald, an Edison spokesman. ``There was a maturing process going on in the rest of the United States in the last 10 years.``

In those 10 years, the net capacity factor at Edison`s plants dropped below the national average in 1979, 1985, 1986 and 1987.